Bigger, stronger, better: Michigan State is too much for UConn men to handle

By David Borges

Updated 12:01 pm, Saturday, November 25, 2017

Photo: Troy Wayrynen / Associated Press

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Michigan State guard Matt McQuaid, center, celebrates with forward Ben Carter, left, after making a three point basket during the second half of a game at the Phil Knight Invitational Tournament in Portland, Ore., on Thursday. less

Michigan State guard Matt McQuaid, center, celebrates with forward Ben Carter, left, after making a three point basket during the second half of a game at the Phil Knight Invitational Tournament in Portland, ... more

Photo: Troy Wayrynen / Associated Press

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UConn guard Jalen Adams, center, drives to the basket against Oregon forward Keith Smith, right, during the second half of a game at the Phil Knight Invitational tournament in Portland, Ore., on Thursday.

UConn guard Jalen Adams, center, drives to the basket against Oregon forward Keith Smith, right, during the second half of a game at the Phil Knight Invitational tournament in Portland, Ore., on Thursday.

Bigger, stronger, better: Michigan State is too much for UConn men to handle

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PORTLAND, Oregon — For all the positive progress UConn has shown in the early parts of this season, the Huskies took a step back in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

UConn ran into a fourth-ranked Michigan State team that was simply bigger, stronger and better. And while the Huskies made a game of it for the first 30 minutes or so, the Spartans ultimately were just too much for UConn to handle and ran away with a 77-57 victory in a PK80 Invitational Victory Bracket semifinal game at Memorial Coliseum.

UConn (4-1) was within five points with just under 11 minutes to play after an Alterique Gilbert driving layup. That’s when Michigan State unleashed a head-spinning display of offense that ultimately turned the game into a laugher.

The Spartans (4-1) hit their next 10 shots in a row and wound up hitting 12 of their final 13 field goals attempts. Most of them were made by point guard Cassius Winston, who entered the game averaging 9.3 points but wound up with a career-high 28 on 12-for-15 shooting.

“They just make you pay,” said UConn coach Kevin Ollie. “I thought Winston played a great game ... He controlled the game offensively. Our pressure wasn’t where I want it to be at. We can’t worry about tired legs or two games in two nights. We’ve got to go out and play UConn basketball.”

Michigan State wound up shooting 69-percent from the floor in the latter half. The Spartans bullied UConn inside the paint, outscoring the Huskies there by a 40-14 margin.

“They stepped up their level of play, stepped up their intensity,”: said Ollie. “That’s what top teams do.”

And all this was with National Player of the Year candidate Miles Bridges, who had missed the team’s win over DePaul on Thursday with an ankle injury, contributing just eight points in 17 minutes off the bench.

"We're gonna learn from this,” Ollie promised. “That's a great team. We didn't play our type of defense down the stretch. We didn’t make the right decisions. Every time we made a mistake, they made us pay for it.”

UConn will face Arkansas in the third-place game of the Victory Bracket on Sunday at 3 p.m.

The Huskies, of course, were coming off the glow of an impressive victory the night before over Oregon, the de facto home team. All the positives of this year’s team — the improved rebounding and big man play, the overall team health, the dynamic play of the backcourt — were on display in that 71-63 victory.

UConn kept the positive vibes going early in Friday’s game (which tipped off at 12:16 a.m. EST), jumping out to an 18-12 lead keyed by a trio of Jalen Adams 3-pointers.

The Spartans quickly wrestled the lead back after a Jaren Jackson, Jr. trey made it 20-19 with 7:48 left in the first half and would never relinquish it — though the Huskies would stay close.

With the teams combining to misfire on 17 of the final 19 shots of the opening half, Sparty owned a 28-27 lead at the break.

The Huskies’ shooting woes continued early in the latter half, however, while big man David Onourah quickly picked up his third and fourth fouls. Michigan State gradually upped its advantage to 12, even with Terry Larrier (1-for-9 in the first half) heating up and knocking down four 3-pointers in the latter half en route to an 18-point night.

During one stretch, the teams combined to make 10 shots in a row. Seven of them were by the Spartans, however, and they stayed hot as UConn cooled off.

“Those kids played hard,” Spartan coach Tom Izzo said of the Huskies. “They’re gonna get better.”

Ollie wasn’t as convinced about his team’s overall effort.

“I was a little disappointed in the pressure,” he said. “But, at the end of the day, that’s a really good team. We have to learn from that. Every time we did make a mistake, Winston found someone, or they got an offensive rebound. They definitely took it to us the second half. We’ve just got to learn how to bounce back and make some counter-punches.”

Winston added five assists and no turnovers for the Spartans. UConn, on the other hand, had just six assists against 13 turnovers — nine of them in the first half.

“We’ve got to do a better job sharing the basketball,” said Ollie. “When we shared it, we looked pretty good. We’ve got to make hard cuts, get some more fast-break points. And when we come in to the paint, know where your outlets are. Go in there with a purpose and make some plays. I thought we got too deep sometimes and we had kick-outs and never made that pass.”

Added Adams, who finished with a team-high 22 points: “We’ve just got to do a better job sticking to our principles and staying connected as a group, and things will pan out a lot better for us.”

Indeed, this was a step back after an encouraging start to the season. Ultimately, allowing a team — any team — to hit 12 of their final 13 shots isn’t a recipe for success.

“That’s not UConn basketball,” said Ollie.

RIM RATTLINGS: Ollie is now 2-1 all-time against Izzo, a Hall of Famer, while the Huskies are 4-3 against Michigan State. Some of those games are among UConn’s most memorable over the past decade.

There was the 2009 Final Four, a virtual home game for Michigan State at Detroit’s Ford Field that the Spartans won, 82-73. Some feel that if Jerome Dyson had been healthy for that game, the Huskies would have been playing for the national title two nights later against North Carolina.

There was the Maui Invitational semifinals in 2010, where Kemba Walker’s legend started to grow with a 30-point performance in the Huskies’ 70-67 win. The following night, UConn topped Kentucky to win the tourney.

Two years later, in Ollie’s very first game as a head coach at any level, the unranked Huskies upset No. 14 Michigan State 66-62 at the Armed Force Classic in Germany. The entire team surrounded their head coach in a show of unity during Ollie’s postgame TV interview, a practice they’d often continue over the next couple of seasons.

And, of course, there was UConn’s 60-54 win over the Spartans in the 2014 Elite Eight at Madison Square Garden that sent the Huskies to the Final Four in Dallas, where they’d win their fourth national title.

Eric Cobb (high ankle sprain) didn’t play at all for the second straight game. The Huskies had a scare when Gilbert, who missed almost all of last season after undergoing shoulder surgery, left the game early in the latter half and went back to the locker room. He returned to the bench after a few minutes, however, and wound up scoring 10 points in 28 minutes.